Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-09-05
WOMAN AND MARRIAGE.
The IncOmpatibility of a Busf-
ness Life with Wedlock Set Forth

ness Life with WedlOck Set Forth
A lady who has won an almost ma
tional reputation as an educator OF
young women has resigned her place
as principal of Wellesley College.
She is going to marry. 1t is the des-
tiny of mankind (Which includes
womankind) to marry. The few spor-
adic cases of single lives that come
to our notice prove nothing to the
contrary of this sweeping assertion.
These are the exceptions that prove
the rule; so exceptional are they as to
constitute a class by themselves.
There are no pursuits or vocations in
life that man must needs drop when
he enters the marriage state. But
over the door of the temple for Hymen
should be the inscription for women:
abandon your trade all We who enter
here" That there are married women
who carry on business as ''sole trad
ers" is notorious, just as it is notori-
Gus that spinsters and bachelors, fixed
and confirmed, do exist. But, as be-
fore, these exceptional instances
prove nothing. In the women's
millennium, possibly, men will
do their share OF housework, sewing
at home, baby-tending, making calls
and overseeing the domestic service.
In that happy age, women will not
only write novels, sell dry goods, run
type-writers, practice law and bedevil
the telephone, but they will be tele-
graph linemen, carriers, hack drivers,
track-layers, machinists, letter carriers
and, perhaps, bass singers. But until
then the generality of women will find
that they cannot marry and con-
tinue in vocations that cannot
be pursued at home. A woman
pleading in a court room with
her baby within hearing distance
would be an absurdity, although the
world might be educated up to it.
With her baby at home all day she
would play the part of an unnatural
mother. With no baby at all the race
would be doomed to extinction unless
women in mems employment were,
as now, the exception and not the
rule. In short, the married state is
incompatible with female activity in
the general industrial pursuits of life.
The moral of this is obvious.
Women know this, and, while it is
silly to say that they are always ex-
pecting to enter matrimony, every
sensible woman, as every sensible
man, accepts the common conditions
of humanity. No properly constituted
man should evade the responsibilities
of the marriage state. Perhaps we
might 60 further and say that no
properly constituted man does evade
them. And this dictum necessarily
includes the opposite sex for one of the
blessings of nasculinity is that one man
may not marry another. And matri-
mony being the rule, speaking in
large sense, of all mankind, it follows
that women must not hope to succeed
in lines of activity incompatible with
the married state. AS rule they do
not succeed, and they do not expect
to. They take up these out-of-home
vocations as a temporary expedient.
Ofcourse there are many men who
drift into and out of their changing
employments; and there are not a
few who become fixed in their cal
lings without having considered
the matter with deliberation. But
the highest success in life can only
be achieved by men who choose their
business, or trade, or profession with
anxious reference to their fitness
therefor But if a man who thinks
he migi lbe compelled to give up the
calling Of plumber in case of his
hereafter marrying Gas he hopes to
marry, would make very poor sort
Of plumber if he should persist in
learning that lucrative trade. The
fact is that permanency in any pursuit
is essential to success. And women
choosing a vocation in life should
choose one that they may follow un-
der all circumstances in health. The
study of any other calling is time and
money thrown away.-[Chicago Mail.